Chapter 143
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Boom-!!
Swish- Swish-
Mysterious blue energy and fire magic attacks from mages collide.
The intense magics that seem to burn everything, but this opponent was leisurely deflecting them.
A-grade monster, Aooni.
Meaning blue demon in Chinese, it’s a monster that unleashes powerful curses and has high magic resistance, making it extremely difficult to deal with.
Because of this, even Akiba who was focused on searching, was now providing support fire.
Swish-
“Park Jin-woo! Be careful!”
I urgently shouted at Jinwoo Park as the Aooni moved again.
Thanks to the special effect of [Sword of Penitent], hunting was still easy for me, but Park Jin-woo’s tanking position was quite dangerous.
Surrounded by multiple Aoonis, he was barely dodging unknown attacks that could stab him at any moment.
If it wasn’t for him possessing the best mental rune, [Clairvoyance], he might have already been hit by Aooni’s curse and physical attack combo.
Responding to my shout, Park Jin-woo strained his voice.
“Too late! Chase them!”
Park Jin-woo’s body moved as if gliding, dodging Aooni’s attacks.
Then in an instant he turned his body towards one Aooni and unleashed a sword strike.
Too fast to see with the naked eye, a total of 17 slashes.
He made full use of his main rune [Unstoppable Swift Sword], and even activated his ultimate skill [Otherworld Slash].
Crack- Clang- Kagagaga-!!
Swish- Swish…
With that attack, one Aooni completely collapsed.
Park Jin-woo’s [Otherworld Slash] mastery has also increased quite a bit now.
Incomparable to when I first received it.
It has become much more sophisticated and skilled than before.
Of course a normal A-grade monster couldn’t withstand such a powerful ultimate skill.
“Whew…!!”
Without even having time to be impressed, I promptly joined the battle.
To protect the now defenseless Park Jin-woo after using his ultimate skill, and defeat the remaining Aoonis.
Since the monsters were already worn down by our party’s firepower, thankfully it wasn’t difficult to finish them off.
“Hey. What if you run out of ultimate skill already.”
After the intense battle ended.
Gasping for breath, I scolded Park Jin-woo.
“Then should I just let it hit and kill me? I dodged well enough.”
“This sly bastard. It’s easy for you huh, this?”
Despite what I said, it wasn’t actually a bad choice.
Anyway, this is the final point of the mid section, we aren’t going to the boss room.
The boss room of ‘Humid Ghost Cave’ is structured like a separate room, and because of this, unauthorized warp gates created can be easily noticed by anyone.
Therefore, we already knew that the boss room would be pointless even if we went.
Also, the Aoonis were the toughest monsters we’ve faced so far.
It could be a huge loss if we conserved strength here and got hurt by chance.
So Park Jin-woo made the best judgment he could, pouring out all his power.
Certainly, when it comes to battles and duels, Park Jin-woo’s brain processing speed becomes overwhelmingly fast.
“President. What do you plan to do now?”
Yoon Ji-ah, who was in the back, came up to us and asked.
Her appearance dripped with sweat.
Showing that this battle was quite an ordeal for the support personnel as well.
“This is the last mid-point, and we aren’t going to the boss room… so we have to wait here for Hunting Team 5.”
I answered and looked at Akiba.
“Ms. Akiba. Still the same results right?”
Akiba nodded with a gloomy expression.
“Yes, Jae-hyun. It seems smuggling isn’t occurring in the Humid Ghost Cave after all. I’m sorry.”
“Ah, what are you sorry for Ms. Akiba. We all came to investigate.”
I didn’t even expect we could find it so easily in the first place.
I turned my gaze to the path branching off to the right.
The path Hunting Team 5 led by Kwon Oh-jun took.
It seemed they hadn’t finished hunting and searching yet.
“Then let’s wait a bit, and if Team A is too late, we’ll enter the right branching path. We don’t have much time left.”
“Understood.”
Everyone nodded at my words.
I wanted to depart immediately, but the battle just now was extremely intense.
The tired team members also needed some rest.
I also sat on the floor to take some time to rest.
[You were victorious in a duel! Your high contribution in the duel is recognized as a victory. With the mysterious power of a Rune Hunter, you may replicate one of the opponent’s runes. Please select a rune to copy.]
[You have selected ‘Curse of Demons’. Since it is a level 6 epic rune, the level will decrease and be registered as level 3.]
[You have obtained a new rune.]
[You gain Recovery 5, Willpower 3 from the rune’s attributes.]
The rune rewards from ‘Humid Ghost Cave’ were quite good.
Perhaps because the monsters hunted here were different from the ones I’ve fought before, the obtainable runes had no overlap.
A total of 3.
[Tainted Body], [Soul’s Cry], and the newly obtained [Curse of Demons].
Interestingly, they are all related to ‘Divinity’.
The first rune focused on Toughness and Recovery, a rare grade auxiliary rune. The second focused on Willpower and Recovery, a normal grade auxiliary rune.
‘Are curses also considered a type of divinity power?’
Recalling the auxiliary effects of [Simple Curse] I got from defeating a Goblin Shaman, curses did seem related to divinity abilities.
<Holder Info>
◎ Name: Do Jae-hyun
◎ Gender: Male (20)
◎ Stats:-
◎ [Strength: 50]
◎ [Magic: 45]
◎ [Speed: 51]
◎ [Recovery: 31]
◎ [Toughness: 40]
◎ [Willpower: 40]
◎Resistance:
◎ [Water: 10]
◎ [Fire: 8]
◎ [Lightning: 8]
◎ [Earth: 6]
◎ [Wind: 5]
◎ [Poison: 11]
…
…
Thanks to this, my stagnated Recovery point is now 31.
My Willpower point has reached 40.
At first, my points were heavily focused on main abilities (Strength, Speed, Toughness), leaving the other abilities extremely low. But now, they seem relatively balanced.
In fact, my Magic point has even surpassed my Toughness point because of its increased importance.
Random ability point increases from the special effect of [Effort of the Seeker].
And the result of [Rune Hunter].
I nodded in satisfaction at the lightly summoned <Holder Info> and checked the new rune info.
<Rune Info>
◎Name: Curse of Demons
◎Grade: Epic (Epic)
◎Level: 3
◎Engraved Location: Left Palm
◎Special Effects: –
: You can freely wield high level curses, and exert greater power proportional to the rune’s level and your Recovery point. You can use all officially recorded curses.
: Those with malicious and intense curses, in turn have greater resistance to the curses of others. Once a day, you can block a curse with resistance equal to twice your Willpower points. This effect is automatically applied at all times.
: Recovery +5, Willpower +3
◎Derived Skill:-
◎ [Barrier Break]
◎Detailed Information:-
: A curse by demons worshiping Ahriman. When deep faith is twisted, it can sometimes turn into an unbearable curse.
‘Whoa….’
Not from a boss monster, but a normal A-grade monster.
The rune obtained from them was quite good compared to what I’ve gotten so far.
There were quite a lot of restrictions, but it seemed close to the best among Willpower or Mage-type runes.
The stat boosts from the auxiliary effects were very high, and the special effects were all attractive as well.
‘Now I can properly use the spellbook.’
[Cursed Spellbook].
An epic grade item I obtained when first clearing the ‘Goblin Lair’.
This item’s true value is becoming a teacher for using runes related to Mages.
It contained various curses not found in libraries or normal archives, and anyone could freely use them as long as they had the related runes.
I’ve made good use of it so far with the [Simple Curse] rune, and now that I’ve obtained the [Curse of Demons] rune, I’ll be able to try high level curses I haven’t touched before.
‘The curse resistance is also decent.’
The second special effect.
Once a day, I can automatically block a curse with resistance equal to twice my Willpower points.
This was a pretty extreme effect.
No matter what mental attacks I face during future hunts or raids, I can inevitably block one of them.
It was like gaining a curse-exclusive safety device.
‘Barrier Break… will it be useful somewhere?’
The derived skill was a bit ambiguous.
A skill to slowly dismantle magic barriers over time.
It probably won’t show immediate benefits, but will likely prove effective in special dungeons that actively utilize barriers.
“Hmm~ As I said, I was right that we’d be here first, wasn’t I?”
While finishing maintenance.
A familiar voice was heard from across.
Team A that finished searching the right branching path and joined up.
They were members of Hunting Team 5.
“…Team leader, is this right? How are they faster than us?”
“Hrmm. They have one extra dealer over there.”
Kwon Oh-jun making excuses with a sullen face.
I got up and approached him.
“Team leader Kwon, did you find anything?”
But as expected.
Kwon Oh-jun heavily shook his head.
“Nothing. Looks like this place is pointless as well.”
“Disappointing.”
“Can’t be helped. So, are you thinking of going somewhere else next?”
Kwon Oh-jun casually asked me.
The fact that I hold the supreme command of this operation.
It was a question reminding me of this again.
“No. It’s too late today so it’ll be difficult. Instead…”
I looked around at the team members and continued.
“Starting tomorrow, I plan to subdivide our members further and split into teams to investigate.”
“Split up?”
“Yes.”
There were a total of 11 suspicious points for the unauthorized warp gates.
Among them, ‘Humid Ghost Cave’ was the highest difficulty mid-tier dungeon.
You could tell right away from the Red Cyclops and other B-grade monsters swarming from the entrance, and A-grade monsters like Aoonis appearing at the mid-point end.
But just because we chose a high difficulty first didn’t mean all the suspicious points were dangerous.
Of the remaining 10, 4 were around this dungeon’s difficulty.
The other 6 were relatively weak dungeons or fields.
“Team A will remain the same, and Team B will split again. It’ll be me and Kang Juyeon as Team B, and the rest of the members as Team C.”
“What? Will that be okay? I know you and the young lady fight well but….”
Even Kwon Oh-jun, who had infinite trust, looked surprised this time.
To investigate with just the two of us as a party.
Though we’ve proven our abilities so far, worrying came first in this situation.
To this I answered honestly.
“Yes. Since my weapon is a divine weapon, it works well against monsters and cursed monsters. Hunting today was much easier because of that. I think Team B should conduct an investigation focusing on the spots where such monsters appear.”
“Hmm, but… .”
Kwon Oh-jun seemed to be thinking for a while.
After coming to Japan this time, the first conflict of opinions.
But it was an understandable concern.
It was hard to consent to separating the team again in order to facilitate the operation, even though Kwon Oh-jun left me in supreme command.
As the <Judgement of Fire> dispatch team leader, his duties weren’t simply participating in the operation, but also safeguarding our circle.
Especially since Kang Juyeon was the daughter and successor of the clan master.
She was one of the key figures and top protection priorities of the dispatch team.
Separating her like this to better carry out the operation was a hard issue to accept.
But….
“It’s okay.”
A voice suddenly cut in, surprising both me and Kwon Oh-jun.
The person who made us worry.
It was Kang Juyeon’s interjection.
“I’m not weak enough to need escorts either, and neither is Jae-hyun. We’ll investigate faster and deal with variables well. So, we can proceed with the operation.”
She spoke in her usual calm tone…
But with a voice firmer than anyone’s.
“Let’s proceed as planned.”
That concluded the situation.
We couldn’t defy her words once back in Korea, where she has virtually the highest authority.
And she wasn’t forcibly asserting herself either, so it was hard to argue back further.
“…….”
At that clean conclusion.
Kwon Oh-jun and I scratched our heads…
And nodded at each other silently while looking at each other.
Tl/n: Happy year guys.. sorry about the late post, been a little busy. Also, I have some sad news, suppport for this novel and the site in general has basically died down, so ill mostly be reducing the chs per week starting next week and that is untill the chapters have reached a certain point… To which if it reaches that point. Ill be droping this novel.
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